According to a dispatcher, “If you get a call that a baby isn’t breathing, the whole room gets really, really quiet. All the dispatchers pull for the person giving CPR instructions. I’ve had a couple that have gone badly, and those are hard to let go.”

Able to multitask with the best of them, dispatchers often keep idle hands busy with activities like knitting. Some are so adept at multitasking that they continue doing what they’re doing while they’re giving people CPR instructions.

A recent study found that 911 dispatchers often experience Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. As one woman explains, “I heard a gentleman take his last breath after being stabbed. That one still bothers me today, and it happened seven years ago. I have thick skin, but not around my heart.”

If you’re in a bad situation and can’t speak, dispatchers will communicate with you through buttons. “We’ll tell them to press a button if they’re in the city,” explains one dispatcher in Georgia. “If they don’t press a button, we’ll know that they’re in another area. If there’s a domestic situation, we’ll ask, ‘Are they still in the room? Do they have a weapon? Have they been drinking?'”